


Mortal Stitches

by burlesquecomposer



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Heart Attacks, Hospitalization, M/M, heart surgery, post-death torment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:09:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burlesquecomposer/pseuds/burlesquecomposer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shizuo's smoking habit finally catches up to him and he needs a new heart. Though he's at the bottom of the transplant list, he receives a heart from an unlikely donor who disappeared from Japan several years ago.</p><p>But death doesn't end the all-too-familiar torment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally started on the DRRRKink meme. Finally getting around to posting it here.

The evidence of his corporeal misconduct took the form of a gunmetal vapor.  
  
“Got a girlfriend yet, Shizu-chan?”  
  
“Fuck off.”  
  
“Ah, I could take that as a yes  _or_  a no…”  
  
Deadly silence followed, tense waves like a foreboding aura that threatened to snake around their heads and choke like the curls of smoke rising from the end of the blond’s cigarette. One arm held in the crook of the other as he held it up to his mouth, Shizuo shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Izaya, however, sat perched on the just-high-enough branch of the tree that the blond leaned against, bending forward dangerously and hooking his legs back around to brace himself.  
  
“I’ve been seeing you looking fondly at Hanako-chan in history. Sweet piece of ass, huh? Small tits, though–”  
  
Izaya promptly dropped to the ground when Shizuo hit the trunk with his fist. A pile of leaves jumped up around him, fluttering back down to scatter over his body.  
  
“Ow~”  
  
Shizuo closed his eyes to take another calming drag. “Shut up, you’re annoying.”  
  
Izaya pulled himself to his feet, wincing from the aches and pains of the fall, and brushed resistant leaves from his black uniform. “Ne ne, you have to admit she looks tough enough to tolerate a beast like you~ You know she’s captain of the swim team  _and_  the basketball team? I wouldn’t be surprised if she could take you on.”  
  
Shizuo took a deep breath to repress any reactions. “I don’t fight girls.”  
  
“So if I let my sisters play Dress Up with me, maybe gave them some mascara and lip gloss and a couple of ruby studs—”  
  
“No!” A blush struck his cheeks for a moment.  
  
“Ah ah ah, Shizzy’s embarrassed! I did it!” Izaya unfurled his arms in an enthusiastic gesture. Stepping between Shizuo’s legs, he allowed his hand to roam across the blond’s blazer and slip around the dress shirt.  
  
Shizuo uncrossed his arms and did his best to recoil away, but the tree at his back blocked any chance of an escape route. “W-what are you doing?!”  
  
Izaya snorted rather ungracefully. “What does it look like I’m doing?” He reached into Shizuo’s jacket and pulled out a lightly crumbled American Spirit cigarette box, then showed it off between two fingers. “Didn’t you ever learn that sharing is caring?”  
  
Shizuo scoffed as Izaya took out a cigarette and dropped the box back into its proper place. “Are you implying I care? And what makes you think I’m letting you use my lighter?”  
  
Izaya grinned cheekily as he waved the blond’s small silver lighter in front of his dumbfounded face. Shizuo swiped for it, but Izaya enjoyed playing Keep-Away far too much and lit the cigarette before chucking the lighter at his head.  
  
“Izaya…”  
  
Instead of breathing in the nicotine and tar, Izaya examined the cigarette, then flitted his eyes up to meet caramel brown. Shizuo stepped back, which made Izaya step forward, and thus the chain reaction began until rough sharp bark pressed firmly against his back.  
  
His breath ceased altogether when a pair of lips hovered just a centimeter from his own.  
  
He was suddenly all-too-conscious of the air rushing in and out of his lungs, an automatic function that kept him alive in this moment, this time. Izaya could almost taste the nicotine coming from his breath and smiled widely. The blond was paralyzed beyond words.  
  
Izaya’s grin grew large as he reached around Shizuo’s shoulder and snuffed out the cigarette into the tree, then crushed the dying flame in his palm and stomped on the last surviving embers. Keeping his mouth terribly close to Shizuo’s own, he whispered with a sense of mirth and pride:  
  
“Disgusting.”  
  
 _Like the monster you are, struggling for breath._

__

 

Over the years, Shizuo has developed a habit. It’s not a bad habit, nor is it beneficial, but it draws from one of the worst habits of all and develops into yet another.  
  
“I thought I told you to stop.”  
  
Shizuo growled at Shinra, letting his eye twitch for added effect. Shinra merely glanced at him behind thick frames around ashen eyes as he applied more antibiotics to the scabbing wound across his chest with a large Q-tip. Now that he’d been told off, Shizuo picked the dried blood out from under his nails and flicked the dark red flakes at the doctor, watching them collect on the white of his lab coat. He brushed them from his shoulder and frowned.  
  
“Do I have to explain it all to you again?”  
  
“Kinda forgot. Go for it.”  
  
Shinra batted his hand away when Shizuo began to scratch at the hardening scabs again. “The longer a smoker goes without a hit, the more nervous they can get, both mentally and physically. It produces a physiological response that has you overwhelmed with the craving. That’s why people get addicted, and that’s why it’s harder for them to quit.”  
  
“Yeah? And?”  
  
“Shizuo, you may possess unparalleled strength, but as a smoker you’re no different than anyone else. It’s common for smokers to develop habits outside of their addiction; and in your case, you can’t keep your hands still. It comes from the fact that you’re used to bringing your hand up to your face, but when you’re not allowed to smoke – like now, I won’t have you smoking in my home – not only do your hands have nothing to do, but your nerves are also experiencing withdrawal.”  
  
Shizuo’s mind flashed to the few TV shows he’d seen; in one or two of them, when a character who happened to be an alcoholic was forced to stop drinking, he looked like he might keel over and die at any moment. It was almost horrific. “But I feel fine.”  
  
Shinra continued to speak as he reached for the roll of wide gauze and First-Aid scissors by his knee. “It’s not a throwing-up-in-the-bathroom, seizures-and-headaches kind of withdrawal. It’s small, very slight – microscopic, even. Here, give me your hands.”  
  
Shizuo placed his hands in Shinra’s, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear before he did so.  
  
“Ah? See? There’s an example already.”  
  
The blond was taken aback. “What? I just—”  
  
“People with habits can’t exactly pick up on these things themselves. The part of your mind that’s craving cigarettes is subconsciously sending signals to parts of your body that become agitated when you don’t get your fix. Again.”  
  
With a roll of his eyes, Shizuo gave him his hands again, careful this time about where his hands went. It wasn’t like he was somehow trying to prove the doctor wrong, but Shinra wouldn’t be telling him all of this if he wasn’t trying to help him.  
  
“Try your best to keep them still.”  
  
But even with Shinra’s orders, Shizuo could clearly see his hands start to tremble in the air. Even when the doctor grabbed his wrists and held them there, he watched his fingers twitch minutely in desperation. Shinra released his hands, and Shizuo stared at them in mild awe. But he shook all the science jargon from his head and combed one of those restless hands through his bangs.  
  
“What’s the point of the lecture, Professor?”  
  
“No point. I just wanted you to think for a minute before you start picking at your scabs again.” Shinra unrolled a strip of gauze, stretching it out for him to see. “Arms up.”

 

 

One day, Shizuo awoke in the wrong bed.  
  
Any other guy might think that the previous night had begun with heavy drinking and resulted in a woman lying next to him in the morning, but Shizuo wasn’t your typical man. Even through a hangover he would have remembered drinking, and as he looked about through glassy eyes he noticed there was no woman either; however, just then a woman did enter the room.  
  
In one corner the wall was littered with posters he couldn't read from this distance.  
  
“Oh, good!” she said cheerfully, her bright expression hazy in his vision. “You’re awake! Due to your condition we haven’t allowed visitors to see you. Would you like them now?”  
  
Shizuo furrowed his eyebrows and tried to move his limbs, but they felt stiff yet like jelly at the same time. He attempted to speak, but only a quiet noise wavered in his throat.  
  
Condition…?  
  
What condition?  
  
“You have four visitors waiting in the lobby, Heiwajima-san. Shall I bring them in?” the nurse asked again, lifting away the oxygen mask.  
  
“What…” he mumbled to the best of his ability, “what… condition?”  
  
She gave him a sorrowful, petulant expression. “Oh dear, Heiwajima-san must still be under heavy medication. I’ll talk to the doctors, alright?”  
  
Shizuo managed to grab her wrist in time to stop her.  
  
“What… condition…?”  
  
Afraid to test his fabled power, the nurse pulled her hand away gently, and as strength suddenly left him again he let her go. “I’ll get the doctors and they can explain it all to you.”  
  
“Something. Just… anything…” Shizuo planted his hands on the mattress and tried to push himself upright. “I don’t… remember…”  
  
He couldn’t stop her as she hurried out of the room without so much as another word. Shizuo, defeated, laid back down carefully and took a look around the room as his vision became clearer. The bed and sheets were white, and chrome railing encompassed the space around it. A pair of machines sat beside him, and Shizuo’s fear grew the further his eyes traveled along the chords and tubes until he found that they were attached to various parts of his body, bringing oxygen to his lungs and medication to his bloodstream. The walls were white, decorated only by a strip of baby blue and a darker teal flower silhouette.  
  
Shizuo hated it.  
  
“Shizuo!”  
  
His eyes flitted to the door as Shinra raced in with reassuring touches on his arms and face and a worried expression. “Good, you’re not in a coma.”  
  
Shizuo summoned enough strength to bring the oxygen mask away from his mouth. “Good morning to you too, Shinra.”  
  
“Actually, it’s 4pm. How are you feeling?”  
  
“Shitty. What happened? The nurse wouldn’t tell me.”  
  
Shinra blinked behind thick frames, those grey eyes popping open. “You don’t… remember?”  
  
“Obviously not.”  
  
The doctor leaned over him, studying him, scrutinizing him, searching for the joke, the punchline, but all Shizuo had to offer was a blank slate.  
  
“Shizuo, you had a heart attack.”

“A… A what?”  
  
Shinra bit his lip and averted his eyes to adjust his glasses. “A heart attack. Remember?”  
  
He shook his head, finding it slightly painful due to the dizzying bright lights. “Not a thing.”  
  
“Celty says she bumped into you on her way to pick up lunch for me.” The doctor shoved his hands in his lab coat pockets. “Said you two were talking for a little while when suddenly you went down for the count.”  
  
As he fiddled with the oximeter clipped to his forefinger, Shizuo’s eyes raced, unseeing except for the previous hours of the day and backtracking to when he’d seen Celty that day. There were brief glimpses of her helmet here and there in his shoddy pieces of memory film, but otherwise it all seemed like a forgotten dream. His brows met, the real impact of “heart attack” suddenly sinking in.  
  
“Shinra… Aren’t I too young to be having a heart attack? I’m barely twenty-one, I eat healthy, I get, well, plenty of exercise…”  
  
“I don’t think it has to do with any of those factors,” Shinra said warily. “Heart attacks are commonly caused by… well…”  
  
“Don’t use the plural, it’s making me nauseous.”  
  
“How many cigarettes do you remember having today?”  
  
Shizuo blinked. “Uh…” Seriously, how many had it been? It was habitual for him to reach for and light another when one had burned to the end without even thinking about it.  
  
“If it’s difficult to count, I’ll rephrase — how many packs have you had today?”  
  
“Should be in my pocket…” he muttered. Shizuo lifted his gaze when his peripherals caught a flicker of movement, only to see Shinra dangling a crumpled box of American Spirit in front of his nose.  
  
“It has two left. I hope to God this pack was your first of the day.”  
  
Shizuo did not appreciate being teased; it felt like Shinra was treating him like a cat, waving a catnip filled mouse-on-a-string back and forth until he finally sprung forward and pawed at it. Eventually, he did, swiping his hand for the box but failing to get anywhere near it because of how sluggish his body was feeling right now.  
  
“Shinra–”  
  
“You are  _not_  getting ahold of any of  _these_  for a long time, if  _ever._ ”  
  
“The fuck are you, my mom? Give ‘em back.”  
  
“Shizuo, you get it, don’t you? You had a heart attack. A  _heart attack._  Like  _hell_  I’m going to let you do the one thing that caused it.”  
  
“I’m fine…”  
  
“No, you’re not.” Shinra pulled out one of the visitor’s stools, eased down into it, and sighed. “Did you notice? How…”  
  
“Hm?” Shizuo growled in annoyance.  
  
“How your addiction, your habits… they got worse after he left.”  
  
Shizuo stared at him for several quiet moments before scoffing and turning his head to the window, away from Shinra, away from the constant chastising that kept his anger at a simmer.  
  
“Nah, can’t be. I’m glad to finally have that pest out of my life.”  
  
“You never wonder about what he’s doing? Where he’s gone?”  
  
“Tch. No. Why would I give a shit about what he gets himself into? The flea can go die in a pit for all I care.”  _Maybe he’s already dead._  Shizuo grinned at the thought.  
  
“It doesn’t concern you at all?” Shinra’s tone turned almost solemn. “That he just up and disappeared right after graduation?”  
  
Shizuo’s hands, looking for something to do, began to toy with the sheets around his chest. “Hmph. Knowing the bastard, he’s probably doing some crazy shit. He’ll come back though; and when he does, I’ll be ready for him.”  
  
“Yeah, I’m sure he won’t stand a chance against a stroke.”  
  
Shizuo was ready to come back with a retort when the nurse entered again. An older man, presumably one of the doctors, stood close behind her.  
  
“Sir?” she said to Shinra. “Would you mind coming with us? We have a situation to discuss with you, if we may.”  
  
Shinra looked back at the blond, who shrugged, and followed the doctor and nurse out of the room. Though he tried to keep himself indifferent, restrained, Shizuo couldn’t stop the feeling of dread that rose in his throat.

 


	2. Chapter 2

It felt like they were gone for hours.  
  
Shizuo didn’t really know what to do with himself. After staring up at the ceiling for a while, twiddling his thumbs, he looked around for his cellphone. The orange device lay on the table on top of his folded clothes; making him realize that he was wearing a hospital gown with tiny blue dots in a crisscross pattern.  
  
He flipped it open. 36 messages.  
  
Only a few of them were text messages. He scrolled through those rather quickly — two were from Tom, one asking if he was done with his lunch break and the second apologizing profusely. Another was from Kasuka: “Let me know when you feel well enough to see visitors. I’ll be waiting.” Yet another was from Kyohei that read “Heard about what happened through Dollars. You okay? Text me.”  
  
The Dollars? Shizuo quickly replied to Kyohei with a curt “In the hospital” and switched to the online forum. There was an entire new thread starting with an anonymous post.  
  
[I just saw Heiwajima pass out!]  
  
[OMG I hope he’s okay!]  
  
[Is someone helping him?]  
  
[Someone call 119!]  
  
[Fuck yeah, taken down! Maybe Ikebukuro will be a little more peaceful for a change.]  
  
[Don’t say that! He’s a human being!]  
  
[I think of him as more of a monster than anything.]  
  
[Just goes to show what happens when you make too many enemies.]  
  
[I bet he’s just tired. Lifting heavy machinery all day can be exhausting, you know?]  
  
[Maybe he was poisoned!]  
  
[Maybe he “fell” in Love-Love! Ｏ(≧∇≦)Ｏ WITH IZ-]  
  
Shizuo grimaced and quickly passed that post. All he knew was that it ended in “Call the love doctor!” He scrolled past a few more of the generic ones that were repeating previous messages.  
  
[Maybe it’s all a carefully orchestrated plan. He could be faking his own death so that no one suspects it’s him when he joins the CIA! And then later, once everything’s going well for the new Shizuo Heiwajima – he’s got to have a cool alias of course! – his past catches up with him! Maybe some girl he really hit it off with was kidnapped, and he has to turn himself in to the bad guys or else they’ll hurt her!]  
  
[I hear Heiwajima-san’s going to be alright. I thank  _some of you_  for your concern.]  
  
Shizuo snapped his phone shut, feeling more downcast than angry. Public opinion of “Ikebukuro’s Automatic Fighting Doll” hadn’t changed a bit. The blond looked up when he heard the door click open.  
  
Only Shinra. Followed by Celty.  
  
“Oi, where’s that doctor?” he growled. “I want some answers.”  
  
Celty approached him, took off her helmet, and gave him a tight hug. Shizuo patted her on the back a little when he felt her shoulders shake. As she drew away, she noticed his phone out and clamped her hand down on it.  
  
“It’s okay, I already saw them.”  
  
She squeezed his hand and stepped back, replacing her helmet and giving Shinra the floor.  
  
“The doctors thought it best that I be the one to deliver the news.”

Shizuo tried to control his breath, which was quickening fast, and gave Shinra a look of confusion and caution, preparing himself for what would come. Maybe Shinra was playing a joke on him, pretending to act somber as he was before bursting out laughing and telling him he’s going to be fine.  
  
No such luck.  
  
“You have what’s called coronary artery disease.”  
  
Shizuo blinked and waited a few seconds for Shinra to continue. When he didn’t, the blond groaned and rolled his eyes. “Yeah? What is it?”  
  
“As you grow up and get older, fat builds up in the walls of your blood vessels,” Shinra explained. “While it heals, these walls develop a consistency that can get other things stuck, such as calcium and proteins. This all forms plaque, and the more the body tries to get rid of the plaque by clotting, the more narrow your blood vessels become.”  
  
“Get to the point, Shinra.”  
  
“Because these are so narrow, the arteries need to make new blood vessels that bypass the blockage.” He noticed Shizuo’s confused expression. “The whole thing is like being stuck in a lot of traffic, so at the next light you turn onto another street that’s more open. But if there’s not enough oxygen being delivered to your blood and thus your heart, the clot can block blood flow completely, and you have a heart attack. Smoking starves your heart of oxygen, which isn’t a surprise considering how much you smoke. What I, and the other doctors, think you had was a silent ischemia, which means you got this without any prior symptoms.”  
  
Shizuo’s head was spinning. “So you take out the blockage or something, give me a few pills and some water and I’ll be okay?”  
  
“I don’t think you quite understand. Celty?”  
  
Celty stepped forward and held out her phone.  
  
[Your heart muscle has been severely damaged. You need a heart transplant.]  
  
“So? Just get me on the transplant list and I’ll get a new heart.”  
  
“I’m still here to tell you the bad news.” Shinra placed his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet. “Because of your lifestyle, you’re a poor candidate for getting a heart.”  
  
“What, so…” Shizuo’s temper was building. “I don’t matter?”  
  
“It’s not really that! There are certain eligibility requirements that make a good and bad candidate. Though you fall into the less-than-one-year life expectancy, your history of smoking, which qualifies as substance abuse, decreases the chances of a successful transplant. They’re more likely to give a donor heart to someone whose surgery is more likely to go well—”  
  
“Wait wait, back up. Did I hear you right, before? ...‘Less-than-one-year life expectancy’?”  
  
Celty’s soothing cool hand appeared on Shizuo’s arm. She gazed down at him as his own mother would, ready to hold him close when no one else dared.  
  
“…If I don’t get a heart… how long do I have?”  
  
“…I’m so sorry, Shizuo.”  
  
Celty finished on her PDA what Shinra couldn’t choke out.  
  
[The doctors said a few weeks.]

 

 

 

The bedsheets at his lap were currently the most riveting surface he had ever seen in his life, and studying it more and more seemed to bring a dull muteness over the news. No one said anything for the longest time; Shizuo’s eyes had long since grown dim and fairly unresponsive. Gaze dropping to the linoleum floor, Shinra broke the silence with a small cough.  
  
“I’m going to… uh. Give the news to everyone in the lobby. Should I send them in?”  
  
When Shizuo failed to answer, Celty gave him confirmation to let in visitors one at a time.  
  
[Shizuo, look at me.]  
  
The blond raised his head, blinking away the clouds over his eyes and noticing Shinra had left the room.  
  
[There’s still hope. We’re going to get you a heart. You have my word.]  
  
Shizuo wished that, though she had no head, she could at least have a pair of eyes. Green, he’d imagined them as. Even if it were just a pair of shadowy green orbs to match substance with the rest of her blackness, maybe she could look at Shinra more clearly and see how downcast he was at having to tell Shizuo he was going to die.  _No ifs, no hope_. Shizuo was one of the most unlikely candidates on the list.  
  
Anyone else would be infinitely more deserving of another chance at life than himself.  
  
“I’m fine,” he said, the corners of his mouth trying to twitch up in an attempt at a smile, but his muscles remained stiff and stubborn to those fake emotions. “No matter what happens, Celty.”  
  
Though Celty knew now more than ever that Shizuo was telling her a complete lie, she accepted his illusion and typed, [That’s the spirit, Shizuo.]  
  
One by one, everyone was brought in to see him. First was Kadota, who came in with his hand already awkwardly scratching the back of his head. When they were left alone, he was left without words.  
  
“Shit, Shizuo, I’m sorry.”  
  
“What’s to apologize for?”  
  
“Well… that none of us noticed it sooner. If we had…”  
  
“It had nothing to do with any of you. Don’t blame yourselves, it’s my fault for smoking in the first place.”  
  
Tom was next, a rare look of concern adorning his face as he slid the door closed behind him. He gave Shizuo a once-over before propping up a stool and sitting down. He switched quickly to a more deadpan expression that he remembered all too well.  
  
“You look terrible.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“No, I mean, in hospital gowns.”  
  
Shizuo burst out laughing. “I guess I do. I needed that, thanks.”  
  
Kasuka was last, though he looked gaunt as if he hadn’t slept well or eaten at all. His skinny jeans almost looked baggy on him with the way he carried himself. Hadn’t it only been a few hours? It was a brief movement, only slight, but the blond noticed when Kasuka sat down that he fell the last couple of centimeters.  
  
“Kasuka, you should eat. I have three weeks, not three minutes.”  
  
“Nii-san is more important.”  
  
Shizuo’s amber eyes softened. This was an all-too familiar scene: Shizuo lying in a hospital bed, connected to several machines, while Kasuka sat beside him every day to make sure he was comfortable during the healing process.  
  
 _Would it be a_  dying  _process now?_  
  
Shizuo didn’t want to think about that.  
  
“How’s your new movie?”  
  
“I postponed filming until everything with you is resolved.”  
  
Shizuo sighed. “Kasuka… I don’t want to endanger this role for you.”  
  
“Trust me.”  
  
The blond’s worries were lost within those chocolate eyes, solid and unwavering.  
  
“I’ve put a fund together–”  
  
“Kasuka, no.” Shizuo placed his hand on his brother’s, watching the younger’s gaze fall to where they touched, never tearing his eyes from that spot.  _Would this be the last time he got to hold his brother’s hand?_  “I don’t want you to do that. I’ll be okay.”  
  
“Nii-san–”  
  
“Go home, get some rest. I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
Kasuka gave him a skeptical look before leaving Shizuo. It was nearly nine at night now, a moonless sky filtering little light through the blinds. Shinra and Celty came by one last time to say goodbye and that they would be back in the morning to check on him.  
  
The nurse came by and hovered her hand over the switch.  
  
“Lights out, Heiwajima-san.”

When the lights were turned off, he could more clearly see the light from outside; its artificiality strained to break through the minuscule slivers that sat between the window blinds. What was one supposed to do at a hospital? Read? Watch TV? He’d never encountered a hospital drama in which the patients were doing something  _other_  than waiting to hear the doctor’s news.  
  
He’d already received his news.  
  
A bucket list would be useless, he told himself, because Shinra would strap him down to the bed if he even thought about leaving in his condition. Shinra knew little about what he was going through, as much as he tried to form a sense of empathy that the boyish doctor, for the most part, lacked. Nothing about it was physical – only a dull pain lingered in his chest from whatever treatment the hospital had given him to solve his immediate problem. Otherwise, his body felt perfectly fine, and now a restless shiver crawled down his legs and arms.  
  
The least this disease could do was bring him pain.  
  
 _A few weeks…_  
  
Would’ve been enough to finally kill the flea for good, eh…  
  
What would he do in his last few weeks? Even Shinra knew he couldn’t keep him here forever; that eventually he’d want to have his last lunch at Russia Sushi, his last cigarette, his last vending machine or tree uprooted from the ground. To see his last sunrise, last sunset…  
  
Tears were suddenly running down his face.  
  
Last last last, everything  _last.  
  
LAST.  
  
 **LAST.**_  
  
The pain settled in quickly, then: the burn in his nose; the tremble in his lips and chin; the ache of stress between his brows; the feeling of fingers wrapping around his neck, suffocating slowly, gently, just enough to bring him to speechlessness. The essence of bile rose up in his throat, coating his larynx with a sickening blaze. The shudders of his lungs as the gasping followed. He blinked the tears away in vain, more coming to replace those subdued, until he let them flow onto the sheets at his lap. The cramps in his hands didn’t register until he unclenched them from the blankets covering his thighs, knuckles flooding back from white to red.  
  
A few weeks was too vague! He needed to know  _now!_  Exactly how long did he have to live? When would he die? What day, what hour, what minute, the  _second,_ all of it was important! Now he knew why some people went through with suicide – it seemed like freedom, really, to have that kind of superior control over your own death, to decide when to go on, hoping it all got better, or when to finally end it.  
  
He even contemplated it now.  
  
Shizuo fell back onto the bed, cool comfort rising up to greet him more pleasantly than any morphine, as the shudders died and shining droplets raced off to soak the pillow.


	3. Chapter 3

The rest of the week was an uneventful blur.  
  
If Shizuo could separate his daily schedule into percentages, he’d say that about thirty percent of his time was devoted to sleeping at odd hours throughout the day and night, ten percent went to nurses checking up on him and his medications, another ten percent for visitors, and fifty percent to staring at the ceiling in deep thought.  
  
As if he expected the answers to all his questions to appear in writing on its irritating stucco surface.  
  
Like the doctors, Shinra, and Celty had said, Shizuo was not anywhere close to being in the running for a heart. If he had a few years, maybe. Or if all the other patients got their hearts and no one else came in for a new one.  
  
Shizuo already knew his chances of living were grim, but I took him about five days to lose all hope.  
  
“Shizuo, I hate to see you like this,” Shinra said. He adjusted medication levels on the blond’s meter as he’d been allowed by the doctors on staff at the hospital. He sighed, grey eyes downcast to the floor, the bed, anything but Shizuo himself. Shinra wouldn’t know what to do when faced with the dimness that had dulled the once-rich color in his irises.  
  
Shizuo turned his head away just a fraction, not so great but noticeable enough for Shinra to avert his gaze.  
  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
“What’s to talk about?” he said quietly. His voice was nothing at all like the usual loud gruff that once held the city in terror with its cry.  
  
“Well… a lot of things.” Shinra let his back hit the wall behind him and folded his arms. “You don’t have long. If you have something that needs to come out, get it out.”  
  
“That’s an awful way of putting it. I need time to think about my last words, don’t I?”  
  
“Want to talk about Izaya?”  
  
Unlike what Shinra expected, the blond’s body did not go rigid at the mention of the informant’s name. He only seemed to deflate like a days-old balloon, sinking a little, shoulders down.  
  
“No.”  
  
“I know you two had a bad rap–”  
  
“More like several–”  
  
“–but don’t you want to see him again?”  
  
“You’re talking about us as if we had a terrible breakup,” Shizuo spat, the words leaving a rather disgusting taste in his mouth. “Why the hell would I want to see him?”  
  
“Old time’s sake?” he asked hopefully.  
  
“‘Old time’s sake’ would be me finally doing him in for good. Maybe then I could die in peace.”  
  
“Stop saying such things.”  
  
Shinra could take death – he faced it nearly every day – but watching Shizuo lower himself to the level he was at now was too much to handle. This was Shizuo, the once Ikebukuro Legend, now sitting in his deathbed waiting to breathe his last breath. And here he was, joking about it!  
  
“Besides, the flea’s gone. Disappeared. You and I both know he didn’t leave anything behind, or I would’ve hunted him down myself years ago.”  
  
Shizuo seemed to have ended the conversation, sitting back a little on the pillows stacked behind him. Shinra pushed himself from the wall and made his way for the door. Touching the doorframe for a few seconds, letting his fingertips linger on the painted wood, he glanced over his shoulder.  
  
“Ironic, huh? The only person possibly capable of tracking down Orihara Izaya is…” Shinra’s voice broke with a sardonic chuckle. “…well, Orihara Izaya.”

 

 

 

One night, the moon had swelled and rose just so, its curved outline hazy in the starless sky. One night, Shizuo knew. Shizuo knew that this would be his last night. He’d said his goodbyes and anything that needed to be said, yet he still hoped he’d get to see the sun rise.  
  
The ceiling of a hospital would surely be a horrible last sight to see, so Shizuo faced the uncovered window and drifted off.  
  
 _Giant eyes staring at him like molten amber resin. Black surrounded those orbs lacking whites, soft black but the darkest, worst kind, black that was unable to shine. Shadows within shadows within shadows, in places where there were no windows or cracks in the doors or white surfaces reflecting light’s desire._  
  
 _And then it was wet, drenching through clothes and skin and muscle and bone until the water seeped through his very being as if he were a ghost, dripped into his rotting heart and twisting stomach and filtered down to fill his feet and up and up, more and more water filling him like a tall glass that could never be full, never all the way, only to the perpetual brim. It soaked his brain and drenched his hair and eyes and fingers and under his fingernails, and he noticed there was no more water raining down but he was still leaking all of it until it turned red, and he was gasping._  
  
 _Red of a long-forgotten old-fashioned Shakespearean letter seal, glob of wax never quite perfect, one side always more swollen than the other. It sprung open, leaving the faintest trace of crimson tint on the cream-colored paper envelope. There was nothing inside of it._  
  
 _A great, bright fire, catching on the air, grasping at the dark, until it shrunk to a small, single flame. It began to melt the wax of a candle as the translucent liquid pooled and spilled over its edges._  
  
 _And then, something pressed against his lips, like fire, like water, slipping into his mouth just a little, then pulling away, and the taste of jasmine and cinnamon and everything he ever hated, it burned like ice, it froze like pulsing coals, and then it was gone as soon as it had come._  
  
Shizuo awoke sometime past midnight in a cold sweat, breathing heavy and erratic. He swallowed, mouth dry, and looked about. The window blinds trembled with the evening breeze.  
  
Still alive.  
  
Just a dream.  
  
Fingers raking through damp hair, he shivered. His intuition had been right — it was nearly time. His heart was fluttering and faltering in his chest like a dying bird in a cage, like the flame he’d just witnessed in the dream. Shizuo thought he could hear taps outside his room, but no one could be up at this hour. There was nothing left for him here, no more reason, no rhyme, no time yet no time needed; for what does a man, who feels he’s been useless in venture, do in his last few hours on earth?  
  
“Shizuo!”  
  
The door burst open and Shinra was immediately at the bedside, grabbing onto the side rails as more doctors and nurses arrived to join him in gesture on all sides of the bed.  
  
“Shizuo,” Shinra said again, a smile gracing his lips. “Shizuo, thank god, you’re getting a heart."

"But–"

"I'll explain on the way! We're taking you to the OR before we waste any time.”

It all seemed to happen faster than Shizuo could keep track. He lay atop the gurney, wheeled out of the room and into the dimly lit hallway, watching the ceiling’s fluorescent bulb after bulb leave white streaks burned eternally into his eyes. Shinra was babbling — something about miracles and the word ‘anonymous’ — until the thud of the double doors pushing open woke him further, and he sat up, only to be pushed back down.  
  
The walls of the operating room stretched high, so high he couldn’t tell where they ended and the ceiling began, and in the far up distance a window spanned across, where a cluster of white-clad figures watched. Shizuo briefly wondered what was so interesting about his operation that it warranted an audience, but then they were fitting a plastic mask to his face and there was no room to ask questions.  
  
“We’ll begin dosing him with the anesthetic now,” he heard one of them say. In a fit of nonviolent desperation, Shizuo looked around for Shinra, but Shinra was gone, and he wasn’t one of the doctors or nurses that wheeled in the second body on the gurney. He – or she, for all he knew – was set on the operating table beside him, far across the room but just close enough that he might have been able to reach out and touch the fabric of the sheet covering them.  
  
Then a few people passed between them and he couldn’t get a glimpse again. His tired eyes strained to see past them, filter through them and their pearly coats waiting to stain red, but it was like trying to catch the fleeting sun while driving by an endless stretch of forest.  
  
Chemical sleep quickly began to take hold as a nurse counted to ten. He was out before she’d even reached the last number.  
  
And then he was coming to, flickering his eyes open to the ugly white ceiling of his room; not  _his_  room, his  _hospital_  room. His lungs filled with air, and for the first time in what seemed like a long time, it didn’t hurt to breathe.  
  
A sort of numbness kept him at bay, kept him from moving, leaving the weight on his chest to sink and yet at the same time lift, stretching and pulling and pressing. Shizuo felt as if he wasn’t a part of this world, not quite in his body, in the way of one of those aliens that Celty always feared, and the world was still trying to accommodate him – or was it the other way around – when a movement caught the attention of the corner of his eye.  
  
His brother was stirring in his sleep.  
  
Shizuo tried to think of something to say. What does one say after he’s just come back from the bridge of death? “Oh thank god”, as to take the news in stride and live in the mundane? Or a line like “You sleep in a chair that way, you’ll hurt your back,” as if they can abandon the hurt that he’d felt and that Kasuka must have experienced.  
  
But in the end, Shizuo chose to say nothing and let Kasuka sleep. Those straight dark locks pointed arrows at the ground, reminding him of the place where he belonged.  
  
Or rather, the place he should have belonged.

 

 

 

Shinra visited soon after, closing the door gently behind him so as not to wake up Kasuka.  
  
“Hey,” he whispered. The doctor took another one of the stools and slid it closer. “How are you feeling?”  
  
“How did I know you were going to ask that.”  
  
“Didn’t you know? There’s a whole course required in med school that’s specifically designed to teach us all the lines we’re supposed to give patients. So? How, feeling, go.”  
  
Shizuo took a deep breath. His chest didn’t exactly hurt, but a dull pressure remained, as if someone had set a heavy object on top of him. “Really tired.”  
  
“That’s to be expected.” Shinra took some notes on his clipboard from the readings on the heart monitor. Shizuo watched the top of the pen wiggle; it was the only thing keeping him awake, and yet at the same time it was dangerously hypnotizing. “Isn’t it great to be back in your own hospital room? I, personally, hated the gowns they made us wear — especially when my darling said they didn’t look good on me!”  
  
Shizuo blinked out of his weak stupor. “Gowns?”  
  
“You know, the ones I had to wear when I came to see you. In the sterile room.”  
  
“Sterile room?”  
  
Shinra stared at him with wide eyes behind his frames before turning back down to his clipboard without saying another word. Shizuo tried to lean over to see what he was writing, only for a sharp pain to stop him from moving any further. His heart rate spiked on the monitor for a few seconds, then subsided.  
  
“It seems like these memory lapses are starting to become common.”  
  
“Is there something I’m missing here?”  
  
“I hate to break it to you, Shizuo, but you were recovering in a sterile room for about ten days.” He paused, going over more of his notes. “You regained some strength rather quickly, I might add. We didn’t have to keep you on the ventilator for very long.”  
  
“I…” Shizuo’s brows furrowed as he shut his eyes and let his head hit the pillow, trying to conjure up any leftover images in his mind. “I missed… ten days?”  
  
“Something like that, yes. Hey, thank god you weren’t out for years and missed my wedding!”  
  
“Yeah, thank god.”  
  
Shinra ignored the tint of sarcasm to his voice and stood. “I suggest you get some more rest for now. The other doctors and I will be around in the morning to give you the recovery instructions.”  
  
“Shinra, all I’ve been doing is resting! Don’t tell me—”  
  
“All that I’ll tell you right now is that you’re going to be resting for more than just a few extra hours.”  
  
“Dammit, can’t you just tell me now?”  
  
“Shizuo, it’s not like stopping for a cup of coffee on the way to work. They don’t just give you a brand new heart and send you on your way. It’s going to take time.”  
  
There was silence in the room for a few moments. Shinra stood feet planted where he was, unsure whether or not he was allowed to leave. Shizuo ruminated in thought, never making eye contact with his friend. Kasuka continued to doze at his bedside.  
  
“It’s going to… take time.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“How long?”

Shinra shrugged.  
  
“Got somewhere to be?”

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies—this fic has been discontinued.


End file.
